The instant I logged onto Gmail today, I could feel it–the dull, pervasive specter of not caring. My hope is a return to normalcy when I wake up tomorrow, but even as I type this, part of me is surprised it took so long for this wave of apathy to hit. I thought it would’ve happened a lot sooner, frankly, because an equation with exponentially increased sociability felt too unbalanced. A correction had to happen, somehow. That old surliness couldn’t have just disappeared, after all.
To be clear, I wasn’t in a foul mood. That would’ve been arguably better, because you still feel the fire when you’re mad. It’s just a darker fire. No, apathy means a total absence of fire. In the usual course of a good conversation, whether electronic or face-to-face, there is a healthy give-and-take, an appreciation for both the text and the subtext, what is said and unsaid. But when you don’t care, you either flat out ignore the talk or you cut straight to the subtext, with little personal capital invested in niceties.
“Join my network on LinkedIn” isn’t an avenue of opportunity, so much as a prelude to an awkward cold call. “How was your week?” translates to “Ask me about mine.” “Know anybody interested in this job opening?” is a coy way of asking “Are you interested?” Like I said, no room for niceties. I’m digging for the punchline as if it were a truffle.
And “Happy New Year’s! The alumni association is gearing up for the following events, and I’ve done so and so…” really means “It’s time for you to do some pro bono work.” Some bright news on that front is I’ve managed to stop the phone solicitations for donations. Previously I had attempted to replace my phone number with some random digits, but the goddamn database would keep restoring my real number. So I had to wean it off my legitimate contact info, one number at a time, until I found satisfaction. Now, those fresh-faced eager beavers are simply routed to a local Papa John’s, where any mention of Big Ten would merely elicit the response that, no, the $10 special for a large cheese pizza expired a long time ago.
The snooze function on my alarm clock has been seldom used, and if you were to grill me on the total times I’ve hit the button, the number would likely be well under five. It just never made sense to me, this ritual of delaying the inevitable in five-minute increments. Why bother, you know? To me, it’s like asking for the hangman’s noose to be deployed in quarter-inches, rather than opting for the straight drop.
But I’ve been making full use of it recently, and in trying to determine why my policy has shifted, I’ve eliminated the obvious. I’ve been going to bed at reasonable hours. Sleep itself has been sound, unbroken from night until morning. General health has been fine. Mood, level. And yet, when consciousness is forcibly recommended at 7:50 AM every morning, I find myself peaceably protesting by, like, lying down.
I’m going to attribute my sloth to shadow work. You may have read the article, too, and if you haven’t, it’s certainly worth the three minutes. Shadow work encompasses all the tasks other people would have performed for you in a bygone era–pumping gas, bagging groceries, typing, booking travel–that are now shouldered entirely by you.
When I think about my own supermarket experience, I actually make it a point to avoid eye contact with unoccupied checkout staff, especially the ones who stand right in the aisle to hail customers. I’ll go so far as to affect interest in some random sale item on the fuckin’ endcap if I spy a particularly eager candidate in my peripheral vision. Crazy, I know. But I simply want to bag my own groceries! Relinquishing shadow work invariably means I’m standing there as somebody else waits on me, and I prefer motion. All that said, though, perhaps a vacation is in order. Which I will book myself, thank you very much.
In a turn of events truly befitting the end of the Mayan calendar, I dined at Taco Bell for two consecutive weekends, and only now am I unraveling the twisted underpinnings of this self-destructive behavior. It’s no secret I’m an occasional customer. Indeed, I usually find myself stepping into its garishly appointed interiors during my more despondent moments.
That’s right–I have a ritual for my dark periods, just like the artists of old. But unlike Cézanne or Picasso, I don’t channel this dismal momentum into producing great, if unsettling, works. No, I direct all my bleak energy instead toward ordering the T5 (Nachos BellGrande) with a Crispy Potato Soft Taco as an apéritif between the aforementioned nachos and the hard-shelled taco included with them.
This recent trip wasn’t entirely driven by grim tidings, though. Part of the reason was celebratory, in fact, for surviving the gauntlet of holidays with only two extra pounds accumulated, one of which has already dissipated on its own accord. I also derive a grotesque fascination from watching the food move down the prep line and seeing how it’s assembled. “Food” is perhaps a bit too generous here, so let us call it a simulacrum of food, where a shower of beef particulates passes for meat and cheese, or rather cheese substance, is expelled from a caulking gun.